In Cameroon, journalist threatened with defamation charge

Abuja, Nigeria, December 12, 2012--A state
prosecutor in the city of Bamenda in Cameroon has threatened to file defamation
charges against an editor if he does not reveal his sources for a series of articles,
according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on
authorities to immediately stop the harassment against Aaron Kah and allow him
to report freely.

Police arrested Kah, editor of
the newly launched bimonthly Kilum 24,
on Friday after the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health
Board, a missionary-run health institution in Bamenda, filed a complaint
against him. The complaint was based on articles Kah had published in Kilum 24 in October and November that
questioned the hiring and personnel practices of the management of the Board,
according to news
reports.

Kah, who was released on
bail on Monday, told CPJ that he had been summoned twice by the state
prosecutor who demanded that he reveal his sources for the stories. Kah said he
refused, but said he would publish a rebuttal by the Baptist Board instead. The
journalist also said that the state prosecutor had told him that he had until
December 28 to reveal his sources or he would be re-arrested and charged with defamation.

Local journalists told CPJ
that the board had not publicly rebutted the allegations in Kah's paper. Pius
Tih, the board's director, did not immediately return CPJ's calls for comment. Godwin
Ncham, general secretary of the organization, refused to confirm or deny the
allegations and said that Tih was out of the country.

"We condemn the
intimidation, arrest, and threat of criminal prosecution of Aaron Kah as a means
to force him to reveal sources of his reporting," said CPJ Africa Advocacy
Coordinator Mohamed Keita from New York. "We invite the Cameroon Baptist
Convention Health Board to exercise its right of reply or seek redress in civil
court. Kah should not be jailed for raising critical questions about the
management of a public institution."

For more data and analysis on Cameroon,
visit CPJ's Cameroon page here.